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EADS executives set to testify in insider-trading probe

Seventeen present and former EADS executives are set to testify this week in the biggest insider-trading inquiry in French history.

The Autorite des Marches Financiers, France’s stock market watchdog, is looking into whether the executives exploited inside information about Airbus production delays when they sold stock options in 2006.

Antoine Courteault, the AMF’s examiner, called in a report this summer for clearing 10 of the executives, including Airbus Chairman Thomas Enders, but urged fines totaling more than 12 million euros against the other seven, according to an account in the U.K. Times Online (See also accounts in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.) This includes fines of 5.4 million euros against former EADS joint chairman Noel Forgeard, who was forced out by the scandal, and 3.6 million euros against John Leahy, Airbus’ head of sales.

Courteault also said EADS should pay 700,000 euros for failing to inform investors of delays to A380 production plans in 2006, according to The Times.

The defendants plan to say Courteault overlooked evidence from McKinsey, the consulting firm that advised Airbus in 2006, that executives had been unaware of the delays when they sold their stock, The Times reported.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..